A transgender woman who claimed she was raped twice – including once by a fellow prisoner in her cell at HMP Exeter - has admitted she made it all up.

A court heard the 21-year-old pre-op transsexual made the false claims of rape before she was sentenced for sexual offences against underage teenage boys.

Jasmine Hill, from Cornwall but of no fixed abode, appeared at Truro Crown Court by video link where she pleaded guilty to two charges of perverting the course of justice.

The court heard how she was sentenced to four and half years in prison in February 2017. Hill had admitted pretending to be a teenage girl on Facebook to target underage boys whom she groomed to send her explicit sexual images of themselves.

At that time, she pleaded guilty to inciting a child to perform sexual acts, breaching a sexual harm prevention order and possessing indecent images of a child.

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Heather Hope, prosecuting, said the false allegations of rape happened before Hill was sent to prison last year. The first dated back to 2015 while the second was made in 2016, while she being held on remand at HMP Exeter ahead of her court case.

Ms Hope said Hill gave detailed descriptions to the police, including of how she was raped in her cell at the men’s prison.

She said both the victims, who cannot be named for legal reasons, were each arrested by police, questioned and intimately examined. Police then spent considerable time investigating each allegation.

In both cases, Ms Hope added, CCTV footage backed up their alibis and proved that neither men could have raped Hill.

Jasmine Hill (Image: Devon and Cornwall Police)

Barry Hilliard, representing Hill, said she suffered from a personality disorder and admitted she had made up the allegations without thinking them through.

He added: “It wasn’t planned, in that initial investigations by the police showed how the stories unravelled.”

He said it was only recently that Hill, who has been in custody since 2016, was now being held in a special wing of a prison on the Isle of Wight with other transgender prisoners.

“Prison is a difficult environment when you are in a position where you are transgender pre-op,” he added.

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For each offence, Hill was sentenced to two years in prison to run consecutively, a total of four extra years.

Hill was sent back to prison to complete her current extended jail sentence, which had been imposed in February last year. When she is judged safe to be released by the prison authorities, she will then serve the extra four years in prison.

HMP Exeter is a men's prison which deals with all remand cases from Cornwall and across the south west. Under the law, the 2004 Gender Recognition Act allows people to apply to have their gender recognised when they are in the criminal justice system.

Without such recognition however, a transgender person who identifies as a woman but is pre-op can still be held in a men-only prison.

In 2016 there were reported to be 70 transgender prisoners held in 33 prisons in England and Wales. Guidance for the Government says that holding transgender prisoners in 'solitary confinement' was not fair or appropriate.